The Tide_Dead Ashore

by Anthony J Melchiorri

  “Good enough,” Dom said. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking we get one shot at this. If these bastards get away in those MRAPs, we lose.”

  “Agreed,” Dom said. Blind-fire punched through the window and door, bullets plunging into the walls. None of the shots were anywhere close to Dom or Reynolds. But the intent was quite clear.

  Boot steps clattered around the platform surrounding the headquarters and echoed down the intersecting halls. They were being surrounded.

  “We need to act fast,” Dom said. He tugged an M84 stun grenade from his tac vest. “Got a present for our friends inside.” He pictured Spitkovsky hiding behind the makeshift barricade. I’m coming for you, you ugly bastard. He yanked the pin from the M84 and threw it through the jagged mouth of a broken window and turned away. There was a loud pop that made his ears ring and a white flash of light, followed by tentacles of pale smoke.

  Reynolds rammed the door, knocking it off its hinges. The door flattened as he leveled his rifle into the first of the soldiers. A few others tried to shoot back, blinking as they struggled to clear their vision. Two of the men must have been smart enough to shield themselves from the stun grenade. They surged up from behind a table and fired directly at Reynolds.

  Shots clattered against his bony armor. Bone chips sprayed from the impacts. Reynolds growled and fired back until his magazine was empty. He threw the rifle down and lunged at the sole remaining soldier, even as bullets chewed into his shoulder. His claws found the soft flesh beneath the man’s chin, and they came out through his mouth. Reynolds lifted him up and then threw him to the ground, stomping on the man’s face with his taloned feet.

  Dom had to look away. He rotated his rifle around the room, trying to remind himself Reynolds was on his side, as insane as it seemed. Spitkovsky was gone.

  There was an open door at the back of the room. It led to a metal staircase.

  “Goddammit!” Dom bellowed. He pictured Spitkovsky running down those stairs and jumping into one of the MRAPs. The growling of an engine below beckoned him, and he sprinted toward the doorway.

  Before he reached it, a shape hurtled up the steps and crashed into him. Fresh pain bolted through his wounded leg, and the breath rushed from his lungs. A scarred face and a mouthful of fangs looked down at him. Claws reared back, aimed at his face.

  A Hybrid. Another goddamned Hybrid.

  Dom struggled under the Hybrid’s grip. It was as if a truck were sitting on his shoulders. The half-human monster was too strong to fight, and the Russian Hybrid knew it. He smiled at Dom.

  “Captain Holland, we meet at last. I am Dimitri,” the Hybrid said with heavily accented English, his expression full of sadistic glee. “Boss gave special order to make death slow as possible. Please do enjoy.”

  He curled a hooked claw under Dom’s chin. Before he could slice into the vulnerable flesh, Reynolds knocked the Hybrid off Dom. They fell in a tangled mess of claws and bone. Dom pushed himself from the ground. The agony in his leg almost sent him reeling.

  The clash between the two Hybrids crushed a table and sent a computer monitor tumbling to the floor in a shower of sparks. Dom tried to aim at Dimitri, but they were moving too fast. He couldn’t take a shot like this. He would just as likely kill Reynolds.

  More soldiers appeared at the entrance where Dom and Reynolds had first come in. Dom blasted the first to appear and sent a second sprawling in a pool of his own blood. Others came in more cautiously, finding cover faster than Dom’s bullets found them. Dom couldn’t make a stand here. Not with Reynolds locked in a talon-to-talon death match with Dimitri.

  He tried to position himself to help Reynolds, ducking behind another bank of computers and tables. Rounds pierced the wood, tearing holes in the flimsy furniture.

  An engine growled to life in the garage. Then a second. Spitkovsky was getting away.

  “Go!” Reynolds roared. “Go stop them!”

  Dom hesitated. He couldn’t leave Reynolds behind. It would be a death sentence. Then again, Reynolds had known that was what he was getting himself into all along.

  “Go!” Reynolds said a third time.

  This time, Dom didn’t hesitate. He rushed down the stairs, barely staying upright as his leg wavered painfully. He couldn’t run them down on foot. His best bet was to reach Spitkovsky and his men before they left the garage. He reached the bottom of the staircase. His lungs burned. His leg was even worse. Shouldering his rifle, he fired at the first MRAP as it peeled out.

  The damn thing was built to withstand mines. Small-arms fire did nothing to it. A driver was stepping into the second MRAP.

  “No, you don’t, asshole!” Dom charged.

  The man slid into the driver’s seat, his eyes wide. Dom opened up. Desperation filled him as the man tugged the door closed. Rounds sparked against the sides of the vehicle. One found the man’s leg, tearing into muscle and undoubtedly breaking bone. The driver yelped, his leg reflexively kicking out straight, and the door slammed into his ankle. His other foot found the gas pedal. The man was wild with pain, though, and the truck scraped into the side of the building.

  It gave Dom the time he needed. He rushed to catch up and jumped onto the side of the truck, holding the door open. The driver tried to regain control of the vehicle, but Dom kept one hand on the door and used the other to pummel the man. Dom grabbed the man’s collar and threw him out with a mighty heave, slamming the door shut behind him.

  He heard a commotion behind him as he swung the MRAP out into the shipyard. A gaggle of soldiers were seated in the back of the vehicle. A couple of them tried to reach through the slot that separated them from the driver’s seat.

  Dom fingered an M4 grenade on his tac vest. The MRAP protected soldiers from explosions that happened outside the vehicle, but a grenade inside the passenger hold...

  He tossed the grenade and slammed the partition shut. The clang of the rear hatch opening resounded through the metal plating as the men frantically tried to escape. Then the grenade exploded and rocked the MRAP. The little door on the partition broke open, letting smoke drift into the cab. Dom risked a glance into the back. The seats were shredded, and singe marks marred the steel. None of his passengers would be bothering him again.

  He turned back to face the windshield as small-arms fire pinged against it. Apparently, a few of the soldiers had escaped before the grenade went off. They didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was the six-wheeled Typhoon ahead of him, accelerating through the shipyard.

  Spitkovsky would not get away this time.

  ***

  The Hybrids perched on the roof of the warehouse were firing at the Hunters and their newfound allies. Meredith searched for cover, but with their enemies literally on top of them, there was little space for cover. One of the American Hybrids went down in a bloody mess of cracked bony plates.

  Meredith wheeled her rifle toward the Russians and let loose a barrage of fire to beat them back. But they seemed not to care. Even as one of their number tumbled to the ground, the others didn’t back away.

  They were desperate to finish this battle.

  Well, so was she.

  Hideous cries, nearly as frightening as the Skulls, exploded from the Russian Hybrids. An answering battle call burst from the soldiers that had been gathering around the docks. They rushed forth as if they were part of some crazed World War I bayonet charge. Maybe they were spurred on by bloodlust, not so different from the Skulls themselves.

  “What’s going on?” Meredith asked O’Neil as she crouched next to Andris and Glenn. Miguel took careful shots at the Hybrids, and Jenna fired into the soldiers rushing toward them like a tidal wave. Spencer tossed a grenade that took out several of them, but it didn’t halt their overall advance.

  O’Neil suddenly went still. “It’s happening. They’re trying to call the Skulls.”

  “Are you sure?” Jenna asked. “These people don’t seem to notice.”

  “I’m positive,” O’Neil sai
d. His eyes grew redder. The vessels pressing against his nearly translucent skin dilated. “I can feel it.”

  He looked like an animal about to go rabid.

  The other Hybrids on their side seemed to be similarly affected. They shrieked every bit as loudly as a normal Skull. One of them rocketed out of cover and barreled at the advancing soldiers. Bullets bit into his bones and flesh, chiseling away at his body and pushing him back, but not before his claws sank into one of the men. He died with his fingers embedded in the chest of an FGL soldier.

  “Hold the line!” O’Neil bellowed to his fellow Hybrids. “Hold the line!”

  His voice was laced with a mixture of anger and power. Meredith almost stepped back from him when she heard it. The pheromones or whatever it was that riled the Skulls seemed to be imbuing O’Neil with a monstrous ferocity. Despite his orders, a few more of the Hybrids broke from their ranks. One of the SEALs started scaling the warehouse, scrambling toward the Russian Hybrids above. He was picked off by gunfire, but another scuttled past him as he fell. The Hybrid clashed into two of the Russians, bringing all three of them back to earth. Their bodies smacked against the concrete with sickening thumps.

  They were quickly losing control of this battle—and any chance for survival.

  Meredith felt a rush of hot air by her head. Rounds impaled a nearby crate an instant later. She returned fire, bringing down one of the Hybrids. The arrogant bastards didn’t even bother trying to find cover. They just stood there as if they knew the battle was already over. They had already won.

  A grenade exploded nearby. One of the Moroccan Hybrids disappeared in a cloud of bone and flesh.

  Meredith scrambled to come up with some way out of this mess. Maybe they could make a run for it. With enough cover fire, they might make it through the advancing line of Russians. But the cold reality was that the retreat would likely get a couple of the Hunters killed. The unforgiving, logical voice in her head told her it was better to endure one or two deaths than to leave them all trapped in this tightening noose.

  Then she heard it. The chorus of the dead. Moans and howls, shrieks and wails. The clattering of claws and talons against metal and concrete. The drone of a Skull horde. Normally the sound signaled terror, promising all who stood in the horde’s way a violent and gory death.

  But now, it almost made Meredith giddy. Goddammit, O’Neil’s plan had worked.

  The Hybrids atop the warehouse had noticed. Confusion riddled their ranks, and a few darted away, running to presumably address the growing threat of a Skull horde. The charge of Russians over the shipyards seemed to slow to a trickle. They didn’t stop firing on the Hunters or allied Hybrids, but at least they hunkered down. It wasn’t long before a couple squads of those soldiers left, too.

  “It’s working,” O’Neil said. His nostrils expanded and contracted with each ragged breath. Flames of rage seemed to burn behind his bloodshot eyes. “It’s working.”

  -39-

  Andris listened to the rise of the Skull voices. It reminded him of the haunting wail of the air raid sirens over Riga. When he was a child, the noise had made him cower. Even when his parents had told him it was just a test, he had expected bombs to drop on his house.

  But now he reveled in the siren-like calls of the Skulls. Yes, it meant that the danger was very real. That things were about to go to hell. But hell was about the only thing that could save the Hunters now. The Russians were falling back, both the Hybrids and the humans.

  “We must get to the ships now,” Andris said.

  There was no better opportunity than when fear stabbed its icy blade through the hearts of their enemies. Right when confusion was at its highest. Right before the tide of Skulls swept over the gates and walls and into the base.

  He knew that wasn’t the plan. O’Neil’s goal had been only to attract the Skulls to the base. But he had also spent long enough in the field to know that Skulls were nothing if not unpredictable.

  “Andris is right,” Meredith said. “If we’re going to do this, we’ve got to go now.” She reached into her pack and handed out the improvised explosives. “Jenna and Glenn, take the closest ship. Miguel, Spencer, next one after that. Andris and I will take the last.”

  “Put the explosives somewhere near the props,” Andris said. “I will set them off when you give me the go-ahead.”

  “Roger, roger,” Miguel said, giving him a mock salute. “Let’s make some fireworks.”

  “O’Neil,” Andris said, “we are ready to move when you are. We need to make a hole through the Russians.” He pointed at the ranks of soldiers blocking their path to the freighters. “Right there.”

  “Consider it done.” O’Neil turned to the remnants of his hybrid troops. “You heard the man. Let’s tear these assholes to pieces!”

  Before he finished the words, the Hybrids emerged from their cover. They moved like spirits seeking retribution, hurdling the crates and cargo, toward the Russian soldiers. At first, the soldiers remained steadfast in their defense. They managed to take down two of the Hybrids. But the Hybrids pushed against the wall of lead pouring into them, enduring shot after shot, never faltering. They reached the line of Russian defenders, and then they ripped into their targets.

  The sight of Hybrids shredding their comrades was enough to rout the remaining soldiers. They retreated, several of them dropping their weapons as they fled. O’Neil had parted the Russians like some kind of demonic Moses.

  “Go, go, go!” Andris bellowed. The Hunters ran beside him, charging through the wreckage the Hybrids had left behind. They leapt over corpses and pools of blood. A few bullets ran past them as the Hybrids atop the roof began to give chase.

  A few of the SEAL Hybrids picked up rifles lost by the now-dead Russians and provided salvo after salvo of covering fire. Andris’s heart thumped against his ribs as though it were about to jump from his chest and sprint ahead without him. The roars of the Skulls had grown louder. The clatter of their claws sounded like hail. Judging by the distant screams and chatter of automatic fire, the Hunters knew the Skulls were now inside the base.

  As the Hunters made it through the carnage, the Hybrids fell in line beside them, acting as a fearsome escort. It didn’t take long before they reached the first freighter. Without any hesitation, Glenn and Jenna dove into the murky water, swimming toward the stern of the docked ship. At O’Neil’s direction, several Hybrids stayed behind to deal with any Russians that tried stopping them. Next, Miguel and Spencer split off.

  “You ready for this?” Meredith asked Andris as they closed in on the final ship.

  “I have been waiting all night. I hope Dom will not be jealous that I take you to such nice places.”

  Meredith grinned wolfishly, cinched her rifle’s strap to keep it tight against her back, and then dove into the water. Her body disappeared beneath the mirrored surface with only a slight splash.

  Andris followed an instant later. He struggled to swim with the bulk of his gear weighing him down. There was a small voice at the back of his head, growing ever louder, telling him he might die. That he wasn’t fit for this.

  Meredith was already bobbing at the stern of the freighter, waiting for him to catch up. The massive ship towered over them. There seemed to be some kind of commotion on the deck. It sounded as if the crew was running wild, voices yelling commands. There was a crash as though a stack of the crates had fallen.

  Andris paid it no heed. “Ready?”

  Meredith nodded, lifting her improvised explosive in the air.

  “Let us do it.”

  They dove under. Andris could barely see his hand in front of him in the murky water. Meredith disappeared in the curtain of silt. Andris heard the click and buzz of underwater animals somewhere beneath them, along with the amplified groan of the freighter as he worked his way down the ship. His lungs began to burn, yearning for another breath of air. He ignored the impulse to shoot to the surface as his hands met the edge of one of the huge propellers. He followed the blade
toward the center and used a cord on the improvised explosive to secure it to the central shaft. He tugged it once to check the knot.

  His body was screaming for air now. A tingling sensation crept through his hands, and the water felt suddenly colder. He powered back to the surface and exploded above the water, treading water and gasping for breath. Meredith soon reappeared beside him.

  “It’s done,” she said. “We actually did it.”

  They swam toward the pier and climbed one of the ladders set into the concrete. Cool night air swirled around Andris’s body, forcing him into convulsive shivers. Water sluiced off his fatigues as they ran back to rejoin the rest of the group. The Hybrids were working hard to hold the Russians back. Jenna and Glenn were already behind cover, helping to defend the pier. Miguel and Spencer came out of the water last.

  Andris hoped he had created his devices well. No one appreciated how difficult it was, mixing the right amount of fuel and fertilizer in the field while doing the calculations in his head. Each explosive contained a pair of detonators and separate chambers. Fail-safes, Andris hoped, in case one was bad. And they had planted two explosive devices on each ship. It had to be enough.

  Miguel jerked his thumb at the freighters. “Let’s blow ’em and get out of here. Kinsey and the Portuguese Air Force will have plenty of time to clean up the mess we leave behind.”

  “I hope so,” Andris said.

  “What’s going on up there?” Jenna asked, pointing to the deck of the nearest freighter. The roar of the Skulls all around the base made it difficult to hear her. Gunfire rattled as the Russians struggled to control the influx of Skulls.

  But what Andris saw atop the freighter frightened him more than the threat of those Skulls. One of the shipping containers had broken open. The sailors on the ship were screaming now, trying to get away from whatever had been inside.

  Skulls. More goddamned Skulls.

  “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Miguel said. “They filled shipping containers with Skulls? What in God’s name were they thinking?”